Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Making Shampoo Bars and Soaps with Fresh Aloe

I use fresh homegrown Aloe vera in my Vegan Aloe Shampoo Bar and my Sesame Aloe Shampoo bar for Sensitive Scalps. Yesterday I restocked my Sesame Aloe Bars so I harvested from this Aloe in the planter box outside my front door. The yeild was about 8 oz. I also harvested a couple large leaves from my mother plant in our raised bed, for about the same amount of gel by weight. After I cut the leaves, I let the yellow orange sap drain out for a while.

Then I slice off the spiny edges, the tips, any other irregular areas. Then I separate the green leaves from the inner gel.

I weigh out approximately one part fresh gel to 2 parts distilled water and put it in the bender.

Then I have a beautiful frothy bubbly liquid for creating a 28% Sodium Hydroxide solution to mix with the base ois.

The rest is just basic cold process soap making.

Today I cut the bars and they will be curing for about 4 weeks. In the meantime I still have 2 of these Sesame Aloe Bars in stock.

Here is some feedback on this shampoo bar from one of my customers:

"I LOVE the aloe vera shampoo bar. I have been facing itchy and flaky scalp for years, since I still used commercial liquid shampoo. After I switched to shampoo bars, the itchiness hasn't disappeared but it did lessen a bit, and some shampoo bars did actually clear the flakiness away. Since the first time I tried your aloe shampoo bar, the itchiness disappeared! The flakiness disappeared too! I have used it 5 times with very satisfying result. It also gives my hair volume and doesn't dry out my hair. Amazing! I wonder what your secret is for creating such a wonderful shampoo bar :)"